The Chimaera's Poetry News

 
The April 14by14 Sonnet zine is out! Sonnetic gems by Anna Evans, Robert Crawford and 12 others. Some of them are wicked! It looks like Peter has nicked the Adirondack chair from the front porch of The Gazebo! Only one poet at a time will be able to sit there now. You've got to keep an eye on these poetry editors.

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Irish-American Poet T. S. Kerrigan whose work will appear in The Chimaera's issue #3 due out in May, will read from his new book, My Dark People in Sanata Monica (USA) on May 10th.

This new volume of verse is 'a profound look at the lessons of a difficult past with the hope for a better and richer future'. X.J. Kennedy, poet and former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review describes My Dark People in the current issue of Chicago's Light Quarterly as a book '[America] sorely needs by one of the finest and most entertaining American poets alive.' Distinguished poet Timothy Murphy has said that in this book 'Kerrigan's tenor has the register of John McCormack. It is a sometimes grave, sometimes hilarious, always profound view of the modern world by a man who has tasted victory and defeat at its highest levels. A master of understatement...'

The poems will be read by Kerrigan himself, an by Thomas MacGreevy (who trained at Dublin's Abbey Theatre) and Michael Cooke (Mulholland Drive, Showgirls). The reading will take place here:

May 10th, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Martin Luther King Auditorium
Santa Monica Main Library
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 458-8600

There is a map here.

My Dark People can be ordered on http://www.centralavepress.com or http://www.kerryrecords.com, or later this month on Amazon.com.

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Joseph S. Salemi's latest essay 'The Witness Revisited: Whittaker Chambers and American Conservatism' has just been published in the Spring 2008 issue of The University Bookman. Joseph's essays and poems have appeared in The Chimaera/II here and here, and in Shit Creek Review here and here.

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David Landrum has had two poems accepted for the fabled Blue Unicorn. David's work has appeared in SCR/II and The Chimaera here and here. He is the editor of Lucid Rhythms, a great little online poetry magazine.

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Quote du jour:

'I’ll clean toilets at Piccadilly Circus but don’t let me come back as a Poetry Editor.'

—Carlol Baldock, Orbis.

Rose Kelleher wins Anthony Hecht Prize!

Rose Kelleher, a Chimaera/SCR poet, has just won the 2008 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for her book Bundle o' Tinder, which will be published by Waywiser Press. The competition was judged by Richard Wilbur.

Rose is a poet whose work Shit Creek Review and The Chimaera have always loved to publish. Just two examples:

Sea Monster

Mortimer

Rose's web page may be found here.

Well done, Rose—thoroughly deserved!

Joseph S. Salemi interviewed by Paula Berinstein

Joseph S. Salemi, who has published work in The Chimaera and SCR (here and here), was recently interviewed at length by Paula Berinstein of the Writing Show website on the problems of contemporary poetry. This interview will be of interest to all engaged with poetry, whether they agree with Dr. Salemi's argument or not. 'The State of Poetry Today' interview can be accessed as an audio podcast at http://www.writingshow.com.

Also, one of Salemi's translations of Horace's Odes was a finalist for the latest Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.

Rick Mullin's New Chapbook

Rick Mullin's work has graced the pages of SCR/TC on more than one occasion:

'Amity After the Fire'

'Shrine to Satan' (An SCR Pushcart Prize nomination)

'Still Life with Mackerel'

'Waziristan'

Now Rick has a new chapbook out, Aquinas Flinched, available from Modern Metrics. You'll also find books there by SCR/TC contributors Mark Allinson, Mary Meriam and Quincy Lehr.

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SCR#7 'Masks' issue deadline is SOON!

March 23rd, 2008, in fact. Crikey! That's next week this Sunday!

Submissions for SCR #7

The Chimaera's 'Belonging' issue deadline is pretty soon too—April Fool's Day.

Grab some vellum, sharpen those quills and start composing!

Submissions for The Belonging Chimaera.

Pat Jones in The Guardian

Pat Jones,the artist/photographer for The Chimaera, is also a very gifted poet. Her poem 'Fog Woman' not only features in The Guardian's poetry workshop for March hosted by David Morley, but a richly evocative phrase from the poem, thick with season, is used as the title for the whole workshop article! Pat is also Shit Creek Review's Resident Artist.

Good on you, Pat!

A Prayer for Sobriety

«Hart Crane, Wystan Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Bogan, John Ciardi, Dylan Thomas, James MacAuley, John Berryman: this is only a short list of remarkably talented 20th Century poets who destroyed themselves with alcohol. I am well along my way to doing the same, which is why I am seeking help at St. John’s.

Curiously, none of these gifted writers wrote compellingly of the thing that slowly or suddenly killed them, thus leaving me “open field running” as a football coach might say. As part of the reconciliation with the truth prerequisite to any recovery from alcoholism, I have gathered together my poems of the last decade which bear upon this affliction... »

The Chimaera is honoured to publish these poems, whose import extends far beyond the issue of alcoholism, and addresses the more general human issue of addiction. Tim Murphy's poems on can be found in The Chimaera #2.

Nigel McLoughlin's Dissonances

Nigel McLoughlin's new book Dissonances is out at bluechrome. Nigel has two poems, Cailleach and Snapshot in the current SCR, as well as translations in The Chimaera.

He'll be reading at these venues:

7pm Thursday 28th February 2008

The Poetry Cafe
Betterton Street
Covent Garden
London

and

Buzzwords at The Exmouth
Bath Road, Cheltenham

Sunday March 2nd 2008
7pm for the workshop
8pm for the Reading.


"...Dissonances is a fiercely ambitious collection which succeeds in creating its atmosphere of unease and voices McLoughlin’s concerns articulately and forcefully."

—Round Table Review.